The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for carrying auxiliary data in a digital signal, such as an audio or video signal, without affecting the perceived quality of the signal. For example, the invention is suitable for use with digital broadcast streams and digital storage media, such as compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs).
Schemes for communicating and storing digital data have become increasingly popular, particularly in the mass consumer market for digital audio, video, and other data. Consumers may now send, receive, store, and manipulate digital television, audio and other data content, such as computer games and other software, stock ticker data, weather data and the like. This trend is expected to continue with the integration of telephone, television and computer network resources.
However, in many cases it is desirable to control or monitor the use of such digital data. In particular, copyright holders and other proprietary interests have the right to control the distribution and use of their works, including audio, video and literary works.
Additionally, in many cases it is desirable to provide auxiliary data that provides information on a related digital signal. For example, for a musical audio track, it would be useful to provide data that indicates the name of the artist, title of the track, and so forth. As a further example, it would be useful to provide data for enforcing a rating system for audio/video content.
Other times, the auxiliary data need not be related to the primary data signal in which it is carried.
Furthermore, it would be desirable if the auxiliary data could be embedded into (e.g., carried with) the digital audio, video or other content (termed a “primary data signal”) without noticeably degrading the quality of the primary data signal.
Commonly-assigned U.S. Pat. No. 5,822,360, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Transporting Auxiliary Data in Audio Signals”, incorporated herein by reference, discloses a scheme for creating a hidden or auxiliary channel in a primary audio, video or other digital signal by exploiting the limits of human auditory or visual perception. With this scheme, a pseudorandom noise carrier is modulated by the auxiliary information to provide a spread spectrum signal carrying the auxiliary information. A carrier portion of the spread spectrum signal is then spectrally shaped to simulate the spectral shape of a primary (e.g., audio) signal. The spread spectrum signal is then combined with the audio signal to produce an output signal carrying the auxiliary information as random noise in the audio signal.
However, it would be desirable to provide auxiliary data in a primary data signal by using the primary data signal itself rather than carrying additional bits in a separate auxiliary data signal.
In particular, it would be desirable to provide a system for embedding a plurality of auxiliary digital information bits into an existing primary digitally encoded signal to form an unobjectionable composite digital signal. The signal should be unobjectionable in that the auxiliary data is imperceptible to the casual listener, viewer, or user, or otherwise provided at a desired threshold level, whether imperceptible or not, in the primary data signal.
The system should alter some of the primary signal's lower order bits to insert the auxiliary, hidden digital data. It would further be desirable for the data to be hidden to be any conceivable digital data, and for the primary signal to be any digitally sampled process.
It would be desirable if the auxiliary digital information bits could be embedded into an existing primary signal at any time, including, for example, when the primary data signal is created (e.g., during a recording session for an audio track), when the primary data signal is being distributed (e.g., during a broadcast, or during manufacture of multiple storage media such as compact discs), and when the primary data signal is being played (e.g., on a player in a consumer's home).
It would also be desirable to manipulate a minimal number of bits in a primary data signal in order to carry the auxiliary data.
It would be desirable to provide approximate spectral shaping of the embedded data.
It would be desirable to provide dynamic and perceptual-based schemes for embedding data.
It would be desirable to provide the capability to embed the data in the compressed or uncompressed domain.
The present invention provides methods and systems having the foregoing and other advantages.